Dangal - masterfully combines excellent writing with great performances

• It is rare to see a sports movie that sheds a light on what it takes to be a great sports person. Most sports movies ask you to suspend disbelief as the screen writer types in a cheat code to let the underdog win. The training sequences are written beautifully. You see how the underdog transforms into a champion. All it takes to convince one is just the dialogue, "See you at 5 am tomorrow".
• Surprisingly for a super star driven movie, there are times when Aamir Khan remains in the periphery. The movie is about his character's dream, but the driving forces are his daugthers. The terrific ensemble cast carries the film. When you are not subconcisouly evaluating dialogues for plot (I did not want to scan at the bottom of the scene every time), and only rely on performance of actors to get the emotional cues, it becomes even more engrossing. Even if the actor appears for just one scene, like the child bride.
• What you see in the children is what you see in the adult actors. There are several scenes where Babita has to watch the drama from the sidelines. Both the actors playing Babita manage to hit the same note when expressing her tentativeness.
• The child actors excel in comic timing as well. Comedy is one of Dangal's strong points. It is not like they are completely reliant on dialogues. When Geeta wins an older age group championship, you see a banner that reflects that by simply striking out "sub" in sub-junior.
• Not to mention the fact that the roles are physically demanding. It is hard to imagine what it took for professional actors (Fatima Sana Sheik played Kamal Hassan's daughter in Chachi 420) to come across as convincing in the wrestling scenes.
• Ritika Singh (of Irudhi Sutru), a professional martial artist was impressive with her one handed push ups, but was severely limited as an actor. And she managed to get a special mention at the National Awards. Going by that standard, it is not a strech to imagine the women here winning all the acting awards.
• Direction is top notch. While the father is desperate for a son, he seems very distant in relation to his daughters, and you never the father and a daughter together in the same frame. The first time you see them together, (you see him splitting a sweet when his cousin has another son and giving it to the daughters) he is embracing his sleeping daughter, only after he has embraced the idea that a daughter can also fulfill his dream.
• The same goes for action choreography. Wrestling scenes in the first half are set in montages, and comedy is neatly blended into these scenes. In the second half, wrestling scenes are woven effectively into intense dramatic scenes where the father takes on the daughter. They stand out in wrestling matches, where the voice over commentary comes together with the staging to create quite an atmosphere. Rarely has action been used this effectively to build tension.
• Many sports films fall into the pitfall taking drama all the way into a sporting finale, but Dangal plays its cards with some restraint. The father is marooned in a far away room, and how he comes to know of the result is even more dramatic. And is staged with some restraint too. (The audience on the other hand decided that they have to stand and observe).
• The way the role of the coach affects the drama is perhaps Dangal's weakest link. The character had some promise initially but slowly slides into a mean caricature. This has not worked in several film in recent memory (Listen to the theme music of one such character in Kabali, and you will see how dated even the background feels).
• May be you need to invest a lot more in the other jealous character for these conflicts to come out well. For every Aadulakam (the director introduced the subject to a film festival audience by posing "What would an Alpha male do when an upstart shows up in his territory?") or even Aurangazeb, there are several films where a poorly written character's meanness takes the film down (Irudhi Sutru has two such characters). In Dangal, it is a contrived means to an worthwhile end.
• Sports has in-built drama, and cinema can easily build on this. Opening and climax cricket sequences in Chennai-28 are good examples. Sports that don't have a wide following are hard to follow, and as result harder to create a drama out of. Some films try to inject the dramatic tension in the plot into the sport (Irudhi Sutru), or have no meaningful drama outside of the sporting action (Vallinam). It is hard to do just one well. Dangal manages to create and sustain two separate dramatic threads and switches between in the climax in a riveting fashion.
• Production values set a really high bar. The set, costume and more importantly minor characters make you feel the rustic nature of the setting. I am not sure if there ever was a time when big Bollywood money was put to better use.

Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada - Wackiness of mostly the right kind

After watching Yennai Arinthaal ...  a friend dismissed the film as a mish mash of Kakka Kakka and Vaaranam Aayiram. Recently a journalist put a question to Gautam Menon, asking why his films fail to venture beyond his usual character types and situation¹. Then there are people who ask him why the walls are always painted white. Personally, I like Gautam Menon's films, but I hate his characters' collective disdain of personal pronouns. Gautam is probably well aware of the skepticism about his work. When Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada opens with the usual Gautam characters types - an aimless posh area guy with a well documented aversion towards engineering, a well educated career oriented beautiful girl whose GPA matches her hotness score on a Trump scale. And the usual Gautam situation - guy falls for girl and magically finds purpose in life. You should be in a for treat.  And just to piss you off, he extensively references situations from Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya. Thankfully for some us he is at least cagey about revealing the name of his hero, who resides in a house with walls painted in all shades of RGB. But seriously speaking, Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada works well as a genre film. And you don't see that coming till the film takes an unexpected turn to hit you with the awesomeness of the name of its hitherto unnamed hero.

Gautam's writing comes to the fore in establishing real flesh and blood characters - how they get along, what their aspirations are and how they react in a desperate situation. The chemistry between the hero and the girl injects life into even uneventful every day interactions. You can see it when Simbu relishes at the time spent doing nothing with the company of the girl. I was surprised at the extent to which VTV is referenced, but the references are just spot on. (Here the girl is the one who is into films). And speaking of references, the Godfather moment did not stand out when it happened on screen. I think they had greater success in cutting the trailer as a homage to Godfather. I liked the Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram better, where Suriya on first meeting Meghna recalls the "hit by a thunderbolt scene²". You see the appropriateness of this reference when Meghna tragically meets with a similar end.

Gautam front loads the film with songs, which helps to keep things interesting despite the "and then ..." structure of the narrative. The only moment I was bored was seeing the couple riding towards the camera for 5-6 seconds at the beginning of "Raasali". The real disappointment though has to be "Thalli Pogathey". I don't have issues with the placement of the song, but the picturisation is downright tacky. The only part I liked is when Manjima executes a swirl³ (please don't ask why) and they decided to insert it twice.  Manjima Mohan's casting is a departure from Gautam's preference for powder faced actresses. There are rough edges in her acting, but she has an exquisite presence on screen - especially the flowing hair! A younger actor might have been more suitable for the hero's role, but Simbu is good. He exists at various times as the before and after pictures in newspaper ads for weight loss companies. You sometimes see the latter, but mostly it is the former. That does help when Simbu has to pack a punch in action scenes. A substantial role like this usually brings out some limitation in an actor's technique, even for experienced hands. With Simbu you don't see any of that in AYM.

In second half, the writing adopts "but then... therefore" structure and keeps you interested, but some problems in writing and direction emerge. Let me first address the problems in writing, because there seems to be a minor trend in Gautam's recent films to over write⁴: a tendency to promise something and then distract the audience into expectation of something that never transpires. In AYM, the hero declares that he will go after the bad guys and determine "Why are these things happening?".  Even though you find the answer to his question eventually, that's not what the rest of the movie is about, so the emphasis is somewhat misleading. And that is also an after thought, because the narrative invents a new character and conveniently assigns the blame to him. I was really hoping that Gautam will use the inevitability of the gun running out of bullets, as an excuse to spare the villain. Instead he concocts a somewhat convoluted explanation for why the hero could not shoot down Kamath. I did not care a lot about logic, but it was somewhat amusing to see when an engineer's ability to sense mortal danger at the nick of time comes in handy as a couple of helmets take a hit on debut.

Gautam's direction is surer in the first half. He is under appreciated for how well he directs comedy scenes. In YA... the unpredictability of a joke's timing really worked well. In AYM, Gautam interestingly cuts from and into people eating, just as the hero contemplates what he wants to do in life. That's literally the only thing he is doing in life! The choice of back-lighting some scenes is interesting, but I am not sure if it was deployed with control⁵. They seem to randomly show up during fight sequences, dance moves and family dinners. He also shoots a beautiful shot of a sunrise (Okay, no explanation needed). Even though Gautam has helped Ajith and Suriya deliver a better performance than usual, he somewhat struggles to control the performance of newcomers (Manjima to a smaller extent and Baba Sehgal to a larger extent). He does not use Simbu's versatility to avoid narrative overlays as he did with Kamal in Vettaiyadu Vilaydu. You feel that they are overused, especially when used alongside scenes with sufficient action and emotion (when the hero stops fleeing and decides to go after the villains) to convey a feeling. They feel redundant. Their tone seeps into dialogues at times, making down-to-earth characters look unnecessarily boisterous.

Action sequences could have been well directed. Firstly, Gautam decides to stay true to the hero's character and does not have him execute stylized stunts. So you see punches thrown at a full blow repeat in several scenes. Secondly, other creative choices don't jell well with the first choice. In the hotel room fight scene, Gautam does not have sufficient coverage, (especially when another guy join the party) and shoots scenes at close up with a single camera setup. Even though that scene intends to  have an element of surprise, it never comes and you see a prolonged standoff. In the scene where the hero is stopped by Hiren (Daniel Balaji), Gautam manages to throw a surprise but compromises the beginning of the scene. I wonder if they were cramped for time, given that they were making the film in two languages. You can see it when they try to execute a match cut as the hero leaves the hospital, but it appears to miss its mark.

The choice of setting a film in a part of Maharashtra that's not Mumbai is rare for a Tamil film (Only Hey Ram/Katrathu Tamil in recent memory have done it before). Despite what the opening credits say, characters from Maharashtra spoke in Hindi/Marathi (I am not sure if that's an exception. Visaaranai's first half was largely in Telugu, making it sort of a bilingual). Tamil overlays usually sound tacky and is more distracting than the distraction from not understanding a language. And watching the film in Day 3 of Trump's America, when the hero claims he is a "Tamilan da", nobody in the largely Tamil audience cheered and you could hear a few sighs of disappointment.  The film briefly yet conspicuously addresses the politics of the region, with a politician vying for the top job conceals the presence of a wife (and for dramatic purposes a daughter). Sounds vaguely familiar? Also look at the name of some the characters - Nathuram, Hiren and Kamath (Sudish Kamath⁶?). The only thing more conspicuous is Gautam's brief appearance in the opening credits, which led my friend to believe that he was going to be the pivotal Pune police officer.

The saving grace for AYM is that Gautam is able to combine the good parts of the movie to pull a "R thing" out of the hat in the last act. This effectively makes this a Mass/Masala movie and makes it work despite it flaws⁷. Several masala movies are churned out as an assembly line production with genre Types instead of Characters in typical situations and a nearly mythical Hero (with a capital "H" and of a Type) who sells mass moments on either side of an interval point. People point out to repeated flaws in lazily made masala movies, and claim that it is a weakness of the genre or Tamil movies in general. Like Agni Natchatram, AYM makes a good case for the genre. It's hero is more desperate than mythical in an endearing way. Mass movies largely work on their ability to sell a mass moment. Take Ghilli's interval block for an example. Several films try to emulate such moments and get them horribly wrong. Take the final scene in The Usual Suspects which has been imported into Tamil without the same effect. The scene works because Kint (a character) becomes Keyser Soze (a type), whereas in Villain the transformation is between two types.

Gautam's writing helps in flushing out the correct kind of characters that makes the film organic, not assembly line. The direction leading to the mass moment is inventive in a wacky way. Never has a text scroll has been more dramatic that the scenes appearing on the screen. And when you see the Character transform successfully to the Type headlined by A. R. Rahman's rap music from "Showkali", the film refuses to be tripped by its flaws and hurtles past the finish line in style. If like the skeptical journalist you are wondering what the heck is different from the usual Gautam fare, let me answer it for you. He places well thought out characters in well thought out situations, and delivers a mass hero movie with a small "h". And you don't even see that coming, until it does.

Footnotes

1. Tricky Question 
2. Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram.
3. That swirl.
4. In Yennai Arinthaal... it is the "fine line between being good and bad", which makes you expect Victor's character will be fleshed out from the mere flashes you have already seen, and will lead to "fine line" in Satya. Victor's character never traverses that arc, and Satya essentially remains a Mister Goody Two Shoes.
5. Look at the number of shots with back lighting even in this trailer. For an excellent use of back lighting we need to look no further than Marma Desam. The usage is not just stylistic. It is an existential need to show a character without revealing its identity. In a move that is either a coincidence or a touch of genius, this cinematic technique keeps the character Karuppu (The Dark One) literally in darkness. They also used different color tones consistently to contrast the time period, and then at a pivotal point mix them to signify how the past comes into head with the present.
6. Of course, you know Sudhish Kamath, right?
7. AYM does not combine two genres well, like Pisaasu or more relevantly Vishwaroopam does. Look at the mass scene in Vishwaroopam (appropriately described as Pakka mass). The transformation is between types. Even the terrorists in the masala movie portions of Vishwaroopam are types. While Vishwaroopam is effective as a masala movie, it real strengths lie in the portions which are framed within the narration of its masala movie: an emotional drama. When viewed as a political drama, it gives us moving scenes and characters. It allows the hero (a character) to feel the loss of a young terrorist (character) who is brain washed to suicide. Contrast this to the climax in the masala movie portion, where the Hero (type) simply shoots the Terrorist (type) to death. Masala movie as a genre does not allow you to empathise with a negative type. Vishwaroopam is more rewarding when viewed as a political drama, in the same way AYM is rewarding as a masala movie.

Kabali - Misfire

Take this scene in Madras, where Ranjith sets up the big reveal. Ranjith uses the literal under the table footise between the lovers as a visual metaphor for the under the table nexus between the two seemingly warring politicians. Notice how the scene has a great rhythm with a clear beginning (pretension between the parties), middle (warmth) and an end (deal). Madras worked mainly because like any good movie, it "did not tell, but showed". That was sufficient to appreciate Madras, even when a viewer has missed the political undercurrent (or the two shots of Buddha in that sequence).

Kabali on the other hand, violates this basic rule of cinema and as a result fails to take off as a movie. Almost everybody in Kabali has peddled drugs, and that's revealed with every character literally telling that to your face in Kuala Lampur slang. The film manages to convincingly answer tell you interesting things about Kabali and his wife, but when it comes to actually showing them it flounders. The temple scene is a case in point. The lengthy interview scene with students is long, and has an unfortunate and then ... and then rhythm to it. When Rajini spends close to a minute telling a fable (of nihilist Tamil nandus) Kabali goes from generic to downright stale. Even worse, the direction at times is poor that you don't even get the intent. That happens when 43 gang attacks Kabali's safe house before he ventures in search of his wife. There is no beginning, or no clear ending. There is nothing to suggest within the scene as to what happened to Kabali. The one second hint of a romantic angle between Dinesh and Dhansika is down right puzzling. It is one thing to have a synopsis of a love story, but to literally shoot it as a synopsis is vera level. What happened, Ranjith?

Ranjith probably wanted to do away with the usual super star build up scenes, or wanted a faster pace for the movie. Unfortunately, this results in poor staging and execution, with jarring jumps between pages of a script, like a Hari movie on steroids. Santhosh Narayanan efforts on the background score provide promising interlude to scenes that don't have much going for them visually. A scene where Kabali rams a jeep into an unsuspecting villain is supposed to mark the ageing man's surprising cold blooded pursuit of revenge. It plays without a rhythm and the moment does not register. To top it off, when the villain suggests that somebody might have pimped his wife off,  Rajini responds with Maghizhchi! The decision to have Radhika Apte's portions play as a series of interluding montages leaves Ranjith with too many fragments to piece together in the first half. The law of averages catches up with Ritwika after Madras and Oru Naal Koothu. She pitches her stoner character way too high which adds to the chaos.

There are only a handful of well executed scenes. The prelude to Ulagam Oruvanukka (referencing lyrics which go like "Paravai Parakka Marakkathe"), and the actual song (with Gana Bala look alikes) were good. Ranjith has the temerity to point out that being a benefactor to the juvenile youth does not excuse Kabali from being showcased as a bad example. He even lets Radhika Apte lord over Rajini (a serial tamer of Tamil cinema shrews) as the over-bearing wife. The best scene in the movie is where Dinesh gets attacked. It is shot from the bottom up, contrasting several top down shots in Madras. The violence and gore is disturbing, and showcases juvenile crime better than scenes in the first half at Free Life school, and stands out like a good thumb on an otherwise sore hand. The editing in the scene is a significant departure from how the rest of Kabali is edited in general. Notice the amount of time the editor waits for Tony Lee to swing his sword waiting for the tension to build. Contrast this with the scene where Kabali cuts the Maghizhchi cake in a flash, where the scene has moved on before you can fully register what has happened. That scene is representative of the jarring quality of editing in the first half. Can some one please explain the one second throw away scene at the swimming pool with Rajini and Dhansika? Second half manages to setup a mood of unease - the feeling that would exist between meaty edge of the seat scenes in a thriller, as a cloud of vulnerability hangs over Kabali. But the problem is that the meaty edge of the seat scenes are missing in Kabali.

One of the two scenes that excited me was catching a glimpe of RJ Tilak and Super Singer Soundarya in unexpected cameos. And speaking  of cameos it is more or less an extended cameo for most the cast. Dhansika manages to look surprised all the time. Dinesh is wasted as a sidekick. So is his on-screen brother from Atta Kaththi. And so are Kalaiarasan, Mime Gopi, Rama (Madras Amma), Madras Johny, Nasser, Gana Bala and Aishwarya Rajesh (I don't remember seeing the last two, but I will just put them here, to be on the safer side). I don't know if it is supposed to be a Venkat Prabhu homage that has gone too far. The only moment that is crafted with some effort (points from at least trying) pays off with Apte showing why she is the most sought actor in the independent movie scene. Rajinikanth, on the other hand is back with a bang. Playing his age he is able to showcase an extra ordinary presence that we have not seen in his recent films. He is mostly good (slips when has to do some rapid tongue twisters in the flash back), and that's one of the few things that Kabali gets right. After seeing the poorly made Lingaa that almost made a joke out of Rajinikanth, I should say some credit should go to the director for directing Rajinikanth in a good performance.

The other scene that excited me was the (intentional?) reference to Aaranya Kaandam, where Nasser answers the question ("What is is dharmam?"). That a Rajini movie references a great movie that made innumerable references to Rajini movies simply blew my mind for a second. On the flip side, Kabali also reminded me of Baasha (borrowing from Godfather), when Tony Lee's enterprise is toppled in a single montage (Sarakku might mean a different thing in KL slang, but I think a yawn is still a yawn). The root cause for most conflicts is petty mindedness and this trope has mostly left me unimpressed (Irudhi Sutru and Kaaviya Thalaivan come to mind). The idea of Rajini playing a character as a homage to Ambedkar and his politics sounds interesting on paper. But Ranjith focuses too much on the personality cult of Ambedkar, and in the process reinvents one of the most important leaders of the independence era as a Dalit fashion icon. And instead of being a movie that puts an end to questions about Rajinikanth's super-stardom, Kabali draws unnecessary attention to the questionable practices that sustain super-stardom.

Theri - a return to the old school

Vijay and Atlee's Theri, like no other recent Tamil movie has highly polarized opinions on whether it is worth watching. Despite what some reviews had to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how it worked well as a masala potboiler, surprisingly an old school one at that. But Theri it is not without its problems. Theri begins with back to back introductions of two time lines (of Joseph Kuruvilla and Deputy Commissioner Vijaykumar), which front loads it with double fluff. I did not think much of Nainika's role. The usual cognitive dissonance associated with processing Amy Jackson in a Tamil film such as thinking of her as a local woman, seeing her lips move when she speaks, listening to the dialogue and putting this all together in your mind is quite daunting. In Theri, be prepared to additionally read the subtitles for her Malayalam dialogues. I liked it better when Theri flashed back into Vijay Kumar's story. First, it was a welcome relief to see Vijay without that hairdo. Second, instead of Nainika/Amy Jackson, we get much better actors in Radhika/Samantha playing much better roles.

In comparison to Thuppaki/Kaththi, Theri on the surface seems like an inferior product. There is little demonstration of craft in direction. Take the initial fight scene when the begging racket is busted. There is no relationship between the actors and the vehicles driven in the background, the blocking among actors is primitive, the location is generic and the whole scene screams film studio/city. In comparison, Thuppaki's bus bomb blast and the ensuing action seems like a classic. You are at least convinced that the action is happening in Bombay and is disrupting another busy day. Thuppaki and Theri have the same producer, but much different production values. Or take the scene where they conclude that the missing woman has not walked past a point. Myskkin would have at least shown you around by making a constable walk from Point A to Point B. Here all deductions and conclusions happen over dialogue.

But that is because, Theri harks back to an older school of Tamil masala film making; a school that predates modern Tamil masala movies that are content to play it cool and would be too embarrassed to emotionally manipulate an audience. In that regard it is a fine film, and its quite unfair to make a comparison to Thuppaki/Kaththi. Plus, it is refreshing, because they don't make them here anymore. You get a preview of what's in store during the first half, with the kids at the hospital or the final moments of the rape victim. When was the last time a mainstream Tamil movie even try to make an audience shed a tear or two? Atlee deserves credit for operating with restraint (whereas Bala would launch an army of Dementors at you) on a genre, where it is easy go overboard. Mindless brutality is a must in old school masala, in order to push the audience over an edge, for that would only justify the masala hero's cathartic revenge, which would not otherwise work in the face of rational thought. Atlee manages to achieve a balance by cutting to the aftermath of brutality, in most cases, without actually showing them happen. On the flip side, the characters don't actively drive the action forward during the first half, which is one of the things modern masala movies fuss about (The other thing they fuss about is doing that in style). The screenplay takes the characters to the aftermath of brutal violence or even the violent retribution for brutal violence, after some water has flown under the bridge.

After playing it cool in Thuppaki and Kaththi, it is a return to old school for Vijay who manages to do the heavy lifting that is required to make the emotional scenes work. As a Vijay fan, I am somewhat blind to the rough edges in his performance, and they do exist here mainly due to the genre, but overall it is a good return to form (your mileage may vary) after a tepid Puli. 'Motta' Rajendran gets the movies best line - the one right after the interval where he explains why they moved to Kerala to setup a bakery there. Collaborating for the second time after 'Raja Rani', he might well be Atlee's favorite actor. He gets a make over every time Vijay gets one, and in the epilogue his new look is just as impressive as the hero's. Every body is a "baby" here. May be that's a wink at Arya. Radhika brings a wholeness to the proceeding, and completes a very small family. I am not sure why - may be Tamil films have stopped providing an explanation or the Tamil society has moved on, or it is Radhika's presence, you probably not notice the missing father. I did notice the missing father, but that's only because the biggest epiphany after watching 'Naanum Rowdy Thaan', was how I never noticed Radhika character's missing husband until long after watching the movie, even though the other main character acutely feels the loss of her parents. After writing strong female characters for 'Raja Rani', Atlee has a reputation to keep, and he meets it by making the old school masala heroine a little less of a damsel in distress. Post a string of arm candy roles in Kaththi, Anjaan and Paththu Endrathukkule, Samantha finally plays a character that is conceived with a modicum of respect. During closes up, Samantha leaves you wondering if she is in wincing in pain after some body hastily patched a broken jaw, that is once again threatening to fall off her face. During long shots, you wonder how someone with those chubby cheeks could have such a slender waist. In the two profile shots that create contrasting moods, Samantha seems to reclaim some acting form from NEPV. Vijay is also in his element during those sequences.

The second half is where real masala moments are actually built up. Take the scene where Vijaykumar meets Mithra's family. Atlee manages to build up to the moment with a bit about Vijaykumar having never fired a gun on duty, and letting a bullet break through the frame, just when the scene is heading towards a happy ending. This is old school masala done well. Watching the trailer you can make a guess about Mithra's fate, but the way this scene plays, keeps you guessing. The acting is good, the conversation is interesting, and even though you have an ominous feeling that this could be Mithra's last moment, unlike the earlier scene at the cafe, the rhythm of the conversation keeps you from guessing the exact moment at which a bullet rips through her. Even a heavy weight like Radhika is swatted like a fly. It is rare, that a movie's best scene is one in which the villain wins, but the scene when Vanamamalai points a gun to the little girl's temple is the only time I cared for Nivedita, despite the knowledge that the girl is going to live. Mahendran is sure to pick up an acting award or two. This entire sequence is an effective use of shock, and ends with a perfect old school masala moment between the leads. Shortly after you get another shock when a school bus veers off into an unintended amphibious journey.

The idea of a cop ghost/ghost cop going on a revenge trip is interesting, executed decently, and on its own might make an interesting movie. But Atlee is content to push fast forward button, as the film almost transforms into a mix of modern masala - trying to rush proceedings to a no frills ending and a Shankar style an eye for an eye social justice potboiler, where everybody gets his revenge. The media tracking voice of the people, or a recently bereaved young son pays back the small loan, they both scream Shankar. There is also a bit of bigotry that is in poor taste, when a minor Brahmin character is slapped or so I think. All you could see was someone providing a callous answer in Brahmin slang, and a jarring cut to blood on the character's face. May be it is upon the Censor Board's insistence or it is keeping with the first half's choice of cutting to the aftermath without showing the action, I don't why there is a jarring cut. The scene has no utility, and I see no point in keeping it except to tell the whole world about your little bigotry. In Anniyan, Shankar manages to kill/maim almost every male character not established as Brahmin, except for Manobala and Nasser's characters. In fact, both the characters Anniyan exempts from the wrath of Garuda Puranam, happen to be Brahmins. Moral of the story: if you are going to express your bigotry in a movie, embed it into the movie's DNA, or at least be subtle. Be like Shankar.